The skies opened up and sent heaven’s dandruff to the earth today – and Moses enjoyed himself thoroughly. This is just the beginning of what will likely be a long, dark, and cold winter. Michigan is apparently low on salt supply – so it’ll be interesting to see what happens as the days and months go on – and the snow continues to fall. The tires will likely be slipping all over the road at a much greater degree than in years past. Oh well — it’s always fun to enjoy the first snow…

I say this knowing full well that by doing so I will cause it to snow at least 4 times in the next two weeks.

It was a nice way to spend the third day of the extravaganza that is Spring Break 2006!!!!! Likely to be the last spring break I ever have in my life. Isn’t that horrific?

Yesterday was spent in Ann Arbor at a symposium concerning libraries and mass digitization — and I’ll probably write something up about that tomorrow – even though it has already been written up to death in cyberspace — noone has yet managed to do it from my perspective.

Anyways. The Openings.

I haven’t been to an opening in a while — and these galleries were buzzing. People were knocking elbows and it was crazy hectic crowded. So aside from habitually picking at myself – which I do when I’m completely freaked out, it was quite the experience. My friend’s friend Maurice – who had a few works in a showing at the Cass Cafe – was kind enough to let us in on another showing a few blocks down on Woodward. The three of us headed over there — and it was AWESOME. I loved it. I don’t think I’ve ever thought of throwing down $350 for something before on the spot — but never have I wanted to more.

Take a gander for yourself at some of Chris Dean’s lenticular art. All you KISS fans out there – pay particular attention to that first work in the series…

This link’ll refresh you on what lenticular is — and you should read the info link on Dean’s own page — where he talks about his work. Reading it over again, his use of the word “fun” is EXACTLY it. That room was electric — and people were beaming. Great stuff.

What I remember keeping me awake last night was rather benign. I kept going over the words I’d written here earlier, “in the shadows of the howitzer hungry slopes of Alyeska.” They are, of course, dripping with dramatic intent. But they fail. They are the evidence a university creative writing professor feasts upon when they use it to tell you how impossible it is to make it as a writer and that your writing is just too damn wordy. Say what you mean, nothing more.

So ended my thoughts of writing.

The problem with those words, a problem I’m still thinking about now – on this overcast day in Michigan – is that usually you need sunlight in order to cast a shadow. I can’t recall the effect of the sky in Girdwood during the waning winter months I spent there – but I am guessing that there weren’t so much shadows as there was a surrounding thick grayness to the world. So to say that one is standing in the shadows of the mountains would be entirely false. Sure, you are standing in their presence, which was what I had actually intended, but are there shadows on overcast days?

Right now I am looking out into the backyard, where a rather large tree is merely 30 yards from the tip of my nose. The earth underneath is darker – but there is no distinct boundary. No firm line. Of course – there are no lines in nature, but I am again abusing word choice. What I mean, is, there is no distinct shadow. There are tones of lightness that spread out, thin out, and disperse without warning.

And now as the sun momentarily peeks out, shapes are molded into the grass. In this instance, there is most definitely a shadow cast upon the earth. Its design emerges – then fades – then reappears. An oft ignored light show. The passing woodchuck is not concerned.

Yet I was. And I laid awake thinking about shadows as I looked around my room. And the clocks kept spinning. And eventually I awoke this morning, with no recollection of any dreams.

Update: (6:02) Just came back in from the outside. Short of hurling rocks, sticks, or insults at me — still, the shadows made themselves known. Apologies to all shadows or relatives of the shadows — I’ve been living in ignorance.

Jessamyn pointed out that I can now read about the experiences of approximately 20 Alaskan librarians on the Alaska Library Association website. Included amongst them, Denise Halliday, the Girdwood librarian, as well as Juneau’s Daniel Cornwall, a.k.a. the Alaskan Librarian on Flickr. No section on Skagway though…

Something to chew on…
And a chance to see if Willi knows his neighbor…

As much as Alaskans hate lower-48rs talking about them…I thought I’d point out this article…

This road has been in the planning stages since I was in Skagway back in ’98. There was a definite split in the town as to whether or not to build. One of my coworkers at the Fairbanks Grocery Store, responding to my questioning whether or not harm would come by cutting down all those trees, said something to the effect of, “This is Alaska. There are lots of trees. There’s nothing around for miles and miles but trees.”

In the article, they pull a quote that says that the issue isn’t clear cut politics as usual, “that opinions aren’t separated along partisan lines or conservative vs. nonconservative.” But knowing very little about the region — other quotes allude to what is at issue.

Money. Buckaroos. $$. Moolah.

“Communities are meant to grow,” says Kathy Hosford, a lifelong Alaskan who rents rustic tourist cabins in Skagway, the Juneau road’s proposed terminus. “If you can’t grow, you can’t survive.”

The emphasis above is added. Ms. Hosford rents cabins in Skagway. That means that most of her business and income is coming in from the roads into Skagway. Naturally she wants another road and another route in so that her clientele and profit will increase. The argument about “Communities begin meant to grow” is a tad bit frightening. Look at urban flight and sprawl in the lower 48. Communities aren’t growing. They are disappearing and reemerging across the land as some sort of sick virus – leaving empty Wal-Mart shells in their wake. Skagway has been around since the gold rush. Its survival does not depend on this road being built.

In fact, Skagway’s survival is due in large part to the number of Cruise Ships that line up to land at her docks. A town of about 700 in the winter grows to 5,000 on busy days when three ships come in from the fjord. I remember another local, during the taping of a radio show in the town’s Gold Pan Theater, discussing this matter and remarking with an endearing emotion in her voice, “We love our winters.”

It seems that the majority of the population in Skagway is still opposed to the plan. The article also shows the EPA’s disapproval. But if the debate has been going on for at least seven years now, probably longer, it will most definitely continue.

Saturday evening I arrived home to find half of the power off in the house. Apparently something is amiss with the transformer outside — and the Con Ed guy came by Sunday afternoon – installed a jumper – and now everything that requires 110v (microwave, fishtank filter…) is operational while more power-hoggy things (the AC, the oven…) are not. The Con Ed guy said they’d probably get someone out here today to take a look at it — but that was before the severe thunderstorms rolled through yesterday – knocking the crap outta Oakland County – and putting about 90,000 people completely into the dark – which in turn knocked this house off the high rung of the urgency ladder.

I can’t cook without the stove. I can’t stand to microwave food. It’s just one of those things…When the winter storms inevitably rolled through Atlanta – knocking everything offline for hours or even days — I was ok in the apartment because I had a gas range…Microwaves cook food from the inside out — which is just wrong. I like to be able to watch the food turning into a meal – and you just can’t put your face that close to the microwave oven. I like to smell the food, to hear the food sizzle, I like to feel the heat — I love flipping it into the air while sauteeing and snagging it on its return…You just can’t get personal with the microwaved meal…

Gas stoves are better. Screw these electric ranges and their evil microwave cohorts…

This morning, after whipping off the sheets in exasperation and flipping off the alarm switch with a little extra flick of the forefinger than needed — I began to think what having this alarm set to a crappy FM station could be doing for my mental health. I know I don’t want to wake up to the buzzer setting; But am I any better off waking to the sounds of Limp Bizkit or whoever plays those other 5 songs in the rotation that sound like Limp Bizkit? Still, I’m worried about having anything too coaxing that could possibly lure me back into slumbers. So, I’ve avoided switching it to the classical station.

This morning I tried to find some sort of article that links waking to the blaring of an alarm with increased rates of stress. So far – I’ve come across:

• The Soleil Sun Alarm Clock
• The same BBC article in two different editions with the same picture photoshopped in the second article [1] [2]
• How Other Cultures Awaken – Alarm Clock Alternatives
• Engadget – Alarm Clock That Really Makes You Get Up
• Life: Constant Hunt for More Snooze Time
• Cortisol
• Understanding the Biological Clock

And the search could go on…But the gist of what I’ve gathered so far is, from the Wikipedia:

The amount of cortisol present in the serum undergoes diurnal variation, with the highest levels present in the early morning, and lower levels in the evening, several hours after the onset of sleep.[...]Changed patterns of the serum cortisol levels have been observed in connection with [...]clinical depression [and] psychological stress…

So – an unnatural interruption of your slumber leads to a disturbance in your cortisol levels which is a cause for psychological stress. It is especially stressful during the winter months, when there is less exposure to daylight. Willi suggested I get a light box a few weeks back — and talked about SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder – but somehow things are more interesting when you stumble upon them unexpectedly. I mean, I’d intended to find out what kind of damage an alarm clock could reap and wound up ingesting a buncha new terms and experiments of light exposure.

This entry has lost a lot of momentum now — undoubtedly due to the increase of melatonin in my system with the blanketing of night — but I think that this may be one of those topics that haunts me. It’s probably gonna cozy up in that fold of my brain that Billy Budd is tucked into. And well it should — I’ve quoted these lines before and I’ll do it again — because they always seem to find a way to surface:

Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I’ll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist,
And roll me over fair!
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.

How can you not let the words Circadian Rhythm haunt you?

Cabin fever perhaps?

Opening an account today – while left alone in the office I overheard a teller utter something between a whine and a statement:

“I just can’t get motivated today.”

In the starkest of realities, finding myself free to let my brain roam about other valleys, I see that the surrounding mountains are very steep and it will take a lot of effort to get my thoughts into higher places. The facade of industrious behavior has melted and I’m sloshing around in its slushy remnants. I have way too much time to think about where I am and what I am doing here and is it really possible for me to get where I want to go and so on. I look to the skies, into the swirling powders, clutching at my head in an effort to deny the call of the Costanza that whips within the winter winds.

By the time I got through with the first 170 questions on my final final, my brain was done. I didn’t complete the final 3 questions concerning SQL queries. I only managed to nail the first before I realized that in order for me to pen the query, I’d have to understand what it is exactly that the exam wants me to find out. There was a lot of muddy language about invoices and line items coupled with abbreviated headers like l_item and p_price and my business language wasn’t up to par at that moment. I don’t know how much success I had with the first part of the exam either. I’m very much disappointed with myself — which just digs the valley deeper. I know the material — but I succumbed to testing anxieties.

The holiday season isn’t helping. The commercial aspect of it makes me feel inept. I’m working on gifts — it’s supposed to be the thought that counts — but it looks like most of you who will be receiving anything — cards or whatnot will be receiving them late. Like…real late. Like…if ever late.

The joyous feeling I’m describing here is further amplified by the knowledge that after tinkering with the .htaccess — it appears that most of the 700+ visitors we’d been seeing daily were actually robots bent on marketing male enhancement products and other bits — so much so that earlier today — when the count was at about 530 passers-by or so — less than half were unique — and over 365 of those robots were leaving behind 403 errors. (A 403 means they’re forbidden by me to see anything here — though they aren’t here for the sights. They are here only to leave their slime like the trail of the snail — which glistens in cyberspace in the form of a hyperlink to their respective vendors in my referral stats — which I haven’t figured out how to stop.)

Yes — these robots act as if they would like to speak. They feast upon the cgi files – drawing that bandwidth brink ever closer — encouraging the illusion of readership in the false forms of ghost visitors. It is all too exhausting. It is almost enough to step away.

Where will those steps lead? I already fear the toils of reaching the lofty peaks but even finding a rock in which to press my weight upon so that I have some support in my stretch and gra is somewhat dizzying. Should I retreat into the past for a few days of diversion? I wonder whether or not doing so would just illuminate further the Costanza I’ve become? I wonder constantly whether any of this matters at all — and how I can possibly erase my name from the “internets” before it comes back to haunt me. Doubtless, it already has. And the fear has set in.

Somewhere out there, my 7th grade teacher has her evidence. She loves the fact that she was right, that I now must realize that you are all laughing at me, not with me. (I’m reminded here of that line in Happiness, where Joy states: “But I’m not laughing.” Although that was reversed — where they were laughing with her and…oh…never mind. It was just a moment of levity until I realized that Joy is simply the feminine Costanza.)

That’s that. I just needed to let some of that noxious gas that’s been poisoning my being loose — into the void. I thought it might do something for me. Blog therapy isn’t what it used to be. There used to be a wonder to it. Escapism. Now it seems I have nothing to return to.

It’s funny, after writing something like this — then looking about for a while and coming across something similar — but not quite the same…Tom: on breaks, endings, process, divisions and great grand narratives….